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Everything posted by Bogie56

This might be a fun and quite engaging thread.
My favourite is the Donald claiming that he could see thousands of Muslims taking to the streets in New Jersey from his office tower on 9/11 to celebrate the World Trade Center attack.
He never completely walked that one back. It sort of became metaphorically speaking at some point.
Personally, I think this alone should have disqualified him from running for President of the United States. It was so hateful and inflammatory and so not true.

The Trump campaign is now said to have been in constant contact with Russian nationals. Was not Paul Manifort's resignation tied to revelations that he was taking money from the Russians?
Makes you wonder about Secretary of State Rex Tillerson too.

Your Top Foreign Language Films
Hello everyone. I enjoyed posting the ’Your Favourite Performances of…’ each week so I thought this might be an interesting carry-on. The main purpose of this and the performances thread was to gather lists of recommended films. For this thread you are simply to consider the overall film. Hopefully there will be some discussion about them too. The format for listing the films should be like this ….
1. Day for Night (1973) Francois Truffaut, France.
Lots of films are co-produced by many countries. I usually just try to pick one representative. The predominant language or the nationality of the director may be the best judge.
I ask only a few things of participants. First, to wait until I have changed the year of the thread before posting your own choices.
Second, to go by the generally accepted theatrical release date of a film rather than the year it was released in North America or nominated for an Oscar. The imdb and wikipedia are pretty good sources for these initial release dates. Film festivals and most premieres count as release dates. I have my own rule of thumb when it comes to films that have been banned from public release for many years. The Soviet block countries had a habit of doing this. In these instances I use the date the film was completed.
Films simply shot in a foreign country do not qualify. Orson Welles made a lot of films in Europe but they were in the English language. Similarly, Antonioni’s The Passenger (1975) with Jack Nicholson is an English language film. I would think that films like The Longest Day or Tora Tora Tora or Last Tango In Paris which have big segments in a foreign language would not qualify as they are primarily English language films. Sergio Leone’s westerns with Eastwood would be English language films as the main cast performed the film in English. And The Artist (2011) is too cute to qualify. If you are like me, you probably try to avoid dubbed versions of foreign films but in some instances they are the only ones available to us. I’ll leave it up to you to decide whether or not to include them but you might mention if the versions you screened were dubbed.
There really isn’t a limit to the number of films one can list but remember they are supposed to be “favourites.” That can mean different things to different people. Excellent films are usually my favourites.
Please list them in your preference, i.e., number 1 through 10 and runner-ups. As in the performance thread at the end of each decade I will do a recap of the number one choices and then call for choices of the best foreign language film of the decade.
We generally try to avoid short subjects or television movies. But, as in the case of Ingmar Bergman’s Scenes From a Marriage many foreign tv movies have also had theatrical releases or played in film festivals. Those films are fair game. A film should be at least 40 minutes in length to qualify as a feature film in this thread.
This time I am going to start with films prior to 1920 for a week then after that films from the 1920’s for three weeks. After that we will go year-by-year doing one year per week. Saturdays will usually be the turn over day for new posts.
For the silent films, and countries like Japan which were still making them in the early thirties, qualifying films should come from non-English speaking countries.
It may take a little while for this thread to gain some steam. Personally, I have not seen very many foreign films in the 1930’s. But in prepping some of this I have noticed that when going year-by-year one gets a greater appreciation of the careers of some of the directors and a greater focus on their films.
I plan on mentioning films that have won major awards in foreign countries or film festivals. But as you are no doubt aware they often win these awards years after their initial release dates in their own countries. This could get very messy. I will endeavour to mention the awards a 1967 film has won while we are on 1967, etc.
You don’t have to have seen many to participate. Just have a favourite.

From the WP ...
The Plum Line • Opinion
A blue wave? How Trump is helping Democrats win in unlikely places.
Democrats just flipped another seat deep in Trump country. Here's why this is happening.
By Greg Sargent • Read more »

Il Signor Max (1937) by Mario Camerini is an Italian Telefoni Blanchi comedy starring a young Vittorio De Sica. It is essentially a mistaken identity film. De Sica owns a modest news stand but has a rich friend who loans him his luggage (with his embossed name) to go on a cruise. De Sica falls in with the jet set and tags along with them through Europe. Will he have the sense to see that it is the travelling maid who will be his true love?

The Late Mathias Pascal (1937) by Pierre Chenal, France is a remake of Feu Mathias Pascal (1926) by Marcel L'Herbier. The silent version has been on TCM. I found it a bit of a slog but then I prefer to see silents in a theatre. The story in both involves a hen-pecked husband who is under the thumb of his live-in mother-in-law. He hits the road and soon his clothes are stolen by a vagrant who later drowns. The authorities find identification on the body and pronounce it that of Mathias Pascal. When Mathias receives this news he takes the opportunity to start a new life. He wins a fortune at Monte Carlo and meets a girl. But of course complications arise.
What set this version apart from its predecessor was the performance of Pierre Blanchar who is perfect as the innocent who drifts along as fate would have it. There is perhaps something Chaplinesque about his character. Isa Miranda co-stars.

The FBI Indictments used to silence the left .... er, I mean the right ... no, wait a minute .... the left ... um, the left and the right ... yeah, that's it ... the FBI Indictments are used to silence the left and the right.
I'm Jimmy Dore , and I'm an absolute maroon.

Wrong. I was referring to the run up to the election when he whined all the time that the election was rigged because he thought he was going to lose and was lining us his excuses. He is doing the same thing now when he tries to discredit Mueller and the FBI. You totally missed the point. My post was as plain as day yet you choose to create a false narrative that suits you. I'm not surprised.

Yeah, but Americans are not 'adult' enough to have gun laws like the Swiss. Sure you can blame 'society' and not guns for the epidemic in the States but it is too late to fix the mass shootings by trying to change or control people. The ONLY solution that will have an immediate impact is gun control. People say that is too difficult to accomplish. Then accept mass shootings as a common occurrence. The next generation thankfully seem to have something to say about this.

From the WP ...
Trump accuser keeps telling her story, hoping someone will finally listen
This Trump accuser keeps asking herself that. But she plans to keep talking about that day in 2006.
By Carolyn Van Houten •
There were 19 women in all who made public accusations of sexual misconduct, or “The Nineteen,” as they had come to be known on T-shirts and bumper stickers. Most had come forward with their stories after Trump launched his presidential campaign in 2015, and the experiences they described having with him spanned five decades. They claimed Trump had “acted like a creepy uncle,” or “squeezed my butt,” or “eyed me like meat,” or “stuck his hand up under my skirt,” or “groped with octopus hands,” or “pushed me against a wall,” or “thrust his genitals,” or “forced his tongue into my mouth” or “offered $10,000 for everything.”

From the WP. And he is said to be co-operating with Mueller ...
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/public-safety/mueller-probe-london-based-son-of-russian-businessman-to-plead-guilty-to-false-statements/2018/02/20/142f4d2e-164b-11e8-b681-2d4d462a1921_story.html?undefined=&utm_term=.2a71916fcffc&wpisrc=nl_most&wpmm=1
Mueller probe: London-based son-in-law of Russian businessman to plead guilty to false statements

From the WP ...
The Plum Line • Opinion
Trump’s unhinged Russia tweetstorm boomerangs back on Republicans
The Mueller indictment should invite scrutiny of the GOP's failure to take Russian sabotage of the election seriously.
By Greg Sargent •